7 ms·

I call my OCD ‘Olivia’

61 points by SmkyMt 8y ago

meguest 8y ago
I struggle a lot with OCD. I have a therapist. We have techniques and routines to try and reduce the anxiety and compulsions to some reasonable baseline. Some days are O.K, others are torture. My frequent OCDs include: 1. Leaving the cooker on 2. Leaving the taps on 3. Leaving a window open or a door unlocked 4. Some kind of electrical fault burning down the house 5. Causing harm to other people, particularly when driving 6. Searching the Internet for illegal content 7. Doing something awful/unforgivable and being criminally prosecuted or losing all my savings in some kind of civil case I never usually experience them at the same time. They come and go one at a time and some I have learned to manage better than others.
- teekert 8y ago
  Would it help to automate stuff? Like detectors on your windows/doors? Or to cook with induction (shuts off when there is no pan and after a certain wattage has been applied to a pan). Or would other things fill the void?
- arethuza 8y ago
  "Leaving the cooker on 2. Leaving the taps on 3. Leaving a window open or a door unlocked" I fret about these things a lot - so I take pictures on my phone. This completely solves the problem for me and, of course, I never look at the resulting pictures. Does create some surreal Apple Memories made up of nothing but unplugged plugs and locked doors set to music.... :-)
  - amelius 8y ago
    Hey, perhaps a life-blogging camera would be the ultimate solution :)
    - arethuza 8y ago
      I must admit that I occasionally look at the Hive app and conclude that if our house is at 18C then it probably isn't on fire... :-)
  - arkey 8y ago
    That's a very practical and straightforward way of addressing it, a really good idea. In my case I very occasionally worry about having left the gas stove on in the kitchen after cooking, and what usually works, in a way similar to the pictures you take I guess, is re-tracing my actions just before and after switching the gas off. This way I can actually visualize how I turned off the gas just before draining the pasta in the sink or whatever. This works if I remember something particular about that specific occasion tho, but it usually does the thing.
  - meguest 8y ago
    I too started taking photos on my phone. It's not a solution, it's a safety behaviour. The trouble with safety behaviours is that they can stop working after a while and then you're in trouble.
  - TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
    I found it helped my compulsion to repeatedly check if I locked a door was to check, and then say, out loud, to myself, "OK, it's locked." Just throwing it out there for someone else.
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  > 5. Causing harm to other people, particularly when driving I actually think this is a healthy thing to be a little obsessively worried about. Drivers are generally too blasé about the damage they can cause to other humans through their actions. Like, most people should be worried about that enough that they drive less often because of it.
  - meguest 8y ago
    It's not healthy. For some people their OCD is so bad that they cannot pass a cyclist or pedestrian, regardless of how safe or textbook the manoeuvre, without having deep anxiety that they might have hit them.
    - InitialLastName 8y ago
      Is it healthy for a cyclist or pedestrian to have a deep anxiety that any given driver passing them is going to hit them? Because that bit happens pretty frequently. You and sibling are right that such a horrific illness shouldn't be trivialized, but I get really tired of people pretending that driving a car should be something you don't feel a little nervous doing.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    Please don't trivialse a disabling condition by saying "sure, but everyone does that". All you've done here is shown that you have fialed to listen to and understand the parent poster. They're not describing the perfectly normal response of "I'm in two tons of metal hurtling down the road I better be careful". They're describing the pathological anxiety response. That gentle rumbling noise? That's a dead child trapped in the wheel arch, and I ran over them at that last junction. The air con is working a bit harder? That's because I ran over someone and that accident damaged the aircon. That car behind me, that everyone else says is perfectly normal? They're trying to get my attention to tell me about the cyclist I just killed.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- ericabiz 8y ago
  Although I don’t have OCD, I have ADHD. Your condition causes you to have anxiety about it, and my condition makes me more likely to actually do one of those things :) How I’ve gotten around the anxiety (as I actually have left doors unlocked to my detriment on multiple occasions, have left the stove on etc.), is I say it out loud as I’m doing it. “Locking the front door.” Sometimes I might have to add a day: “Monday morning. Locking the front door.” as my brain will occasionally trick me into thinking that memory wasn’t from today. I did this enough that now it’s somehow ingrained in my head and I don’t forget to do things as often. I’m not sure if this would work for you, but it might help.
  - arkey 8y ago
    Useful mechanism. And I really like the Monday morning "timestamp" thing. I remember this appeared around HN some time ago, you might find it interesting: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-japan-trains https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-j...
agumonkey 8y ago
I talk to my anxiety peaks. It's a bit like a meditative distanciation device.
stordoff 8y ago
The way I've always described OCD, and this is probably particularly relevant to a Hacker News audience, is that it's like two processes running. There's your normal thought process, and then there's the OCD through process. You completely recognise it as being irrational and ridiculous, yet it often wins and never goes away. It's exhausting.
- teekert 8y ago
  Hmm, this and the article sound very useful, thanx for sharing.
- ashleyn 8y ago
  I have OCD as well. Picture opening htop and seeing a process stuck in D state filling up all 8 cores.
  - teekert 8y ago
    But at least you are the one picturing the htop, you are not the computer htop runs on. Does that help?
    - arkey 8y ago
      I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but for example an introspective person IS the computer that it pictures, so to say.
      - teekert 8y ago
        Yes, but, it helps to picture oneself in the third person. In this case one pictures oneself as a 100% busy CPU, and that may help. It's a well known trick to picture oneself agonizing over something and becoming aware that you "are not the agonizing" but it is something separate from you. It will make you feel more tranquil.
- screye 8y ago
  After seeing some of these comments, I sometimes feel I should get myself checked for a mental illness. But the symptoms seem so widespread across people, that it seems to be within range of normal human behavior. I have not been crippled by any of these things (though it is immensely distracting). It's almost like I am looking for an easy explanation for genuine personality defects (which includes being easily distracted and procrastination). Which then again, makes me feel miserable for using mental illness as an excuse for ignoring my imperfections. Yes, I do have to step on whole tiles (no cracks or breaks) when walking. But, I don't notice it when I am with people. I have felt an intense itch in my back when then door handle was left at a non-90 degree angle. But, it only happened a few times in 2015. I do need to tap my feet to high tempo jazz/prog music or talk out loud to focus on work,...but, even without them I have scored above 95 percentile on standardized tests. So, maybe what I am seeking is simply out of reach because I've reached my personal intelligence ceiling. I do have the kind of distracting thoughts (what ifs and hypotheticals) that the top comment was talking about...but they are never so distracting enough to make me act on them. ( I do avoid going too close to ledges though...I've only so much trust in myself) Problem is, I know people who call themselves OCD for less. But, I seeing people with genuine OCD makes my problems seem trivial. I think the bitter pill to swallow, is that I am simply an easily distracted procrastinator with little self-discipline. But, It would be so wonderful if I could sometimes send these thoughts away, for the few hours everyday that I really do want to work and make real progress.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yantrams 8y ago
As a kid, I used to frequently do things in a pattern that I discovered much later to be the [0]Thue Morse sequence. 1001-0110-0110-1001 and so on. For example, "1" would be snapping fingers and "0" touching my nose. Never had it diagnosed clinically so I'm not really sure if I even have OCD but some symptoms tick the boxes. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thue%E2%80%93Morse_sequence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thue%E2%80%93Morse_sequence
- duckerude 8y ago
  I did the same thing, with that same sequence. Discovering it had a name was a bit surreal. I wonder how common it is. These are other accounts I've found: http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html https://trapezzoid.livejournal.com/82863.html https://trapezzoid.livejournal.com/82863.html
  - yantrams 8y ago
    I know right! This sequence actually has a history of being discovered by people over and over again through out history. I am the linkdot chap btw :)
- p0nce 8y ago
  Hello I had the exact same affliction as a kid. I would always do things in ABBA sequence, up to your 1001-0110-0110-1001 pattern. I remember it made things "balanced" to finalize that sequence. It went off around when I was 7 I think? Wow: http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html => explain it very well
  - yantrams 8y ago
    Awesome :) It stuck around till I was 7-8 years old in my case too I think. I still do it every now and then. Counting syllables and interchanging vowel sounds is another thing I indulge in frequently. Vibrant looks really cool btw. Will check it out. I recently started dabbling with graphics and generative art.
wordpressdev 8y ago
Olivia, as in Olivia Dunham?
- the_af 8y ago
  From TFA: "The O in Olivia stands for OCD"
  - wordpressdev 8y ago
    I know.
    - the_af 8y ago
      Oh. Now I feel silly I didn't understand your comment. Anyway, I like Olivia Dunham too and still miss Fringe.
      - wordpressdev 8y ago
        Have you checked her latest series, Mindhunter?
lolc 8y ago
When my mind is idle it will consider jumping off the bridge I'm walking over, or pushing strangers in front of the passing train at a station. I never thought I would do any of this, and the thoughts are easy to dismiss. To me, these thoughts were just part of the normal what-if and should-i scenarios my mind plays all the time. I was surprised to learn that some people don't have these thoughts and consider it worrying if I have them. I still think they must have a very boring mind if they never consider anything off the beaten path. But there was a time in my life where I had the recurring image of punching my conversation partner in the face. It was quite intrusive and while I wasn't ever close to carrying through I started wondering what caused it. I had to change some things in my life to reduce this back to a passing idea like before.
- arkey 8y ago
  It's very correlated to OCD but afaik it's not exclusive to it, it is its own thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought > To me, these thoughts were just part of the normal what-if and should-i scenarios my mind plays all the time. The problem is that sometimes they might become pretty disturbing, as you can see in the Wikipedia article. But then again, the bottom line seems to be: as long as you detect them as weird, unwanted, unnormal thoughts, don't worry too much, it's more common than you think, and no, you're not becoming a psycho.
- random_kris 8y ago
  hehe this happens to me all the time... Thoughts like let's go off the road with my motorbike, punching someone in face, moral dillemas like go to job but at the same time stay home and just get high.... brains are weird I just hope those thoughts stay thoughts and I'll be able to resist them in future
- rocgf 8y ago
  I've had these kind of intrusive thoughts since I can remember. I would never act on it and now, after having had them for so long, I am confident enough to play along sometimes if I don't have anything better to do. They are apparently very common and most people will have them, to a various degree. I just see them as weird thought experiments and don't read too much into them.
throwitrealfar 8y ago
To clarify, as someone who checks things many times, like the stove, fridge etc. this is _not_ ocd, but “obsessive tendencies”, according to multiple therapists. True ocd is one client they have who literally can’t leave their house because they spend 8 hours every single day cleaning it.
elwell 8y ago
Accepting uncertainty. Exposure therapy. Trusting God. Those things have helped me be master of, rather than mastered by, OCD.

61 points by SmkyMt 8y ago

I struggle a lot with OCD. I have a therapist. We have techniques and routines to try and reduce the anxiety and compulsions to some reasonable baseline. Some days are O.K, others are torture. My frequent OCDs include: 1. Leaving the cooker on 2. Leaving the taps on 3. Leaving a window open or a door unlocked 4. Some kind of electrical fault burning down the house 5. Causing harm to other people, particularly when driving 6. Searching the Internet for illegal content 7. Doing something awful/unforgivable and being criminally prosecuted or losing all my savings in some kind of civil case I never usually experience them at the same time. They come and go one at a time and some I have learned to manage better than others.

teekert 8y ago
Would it help to automate stuff? Like detectors on your windows/doors? Or to cook with induction (shuts off when there is no pan and after a certain wattage has been applied to a pan). Or would other things fill the void?
arethuza 8y ago
"Leaving the cooker on 2. Leaving the taps on 3. Leaving a window open or a door unlocked" I fret about these things a lot - so I take pictures on my phone. This completely solves the problem for me and, of course, I never look at the resulting pictures. Does create some surreal Apple Memories made up of nothing but unplugged plugs and locked doors set to music.... :-)
- amelius 8y ago
  Hey, perhaps a life-blogging camera would be the ultimate solution :)
  - arethuza 8y ago
    I must admit that I occasionally look at the Hive app and conclude that if our house is at 18C then it probably isn't on fire... :-)
- arkey 8y ago
  That's a very practical and straightforward way of addressing it, a really good idea. In my case I very occasionally worry about having left the gas stove on in the kitchen after cooking, and what usually works, in a way similar to the pictures you take I guess, is re-tracing my actions just before and after switching the gas off. This way I can actually visualize how I turned off the gas just before draining the pasta in the sink or whatever. This works if I remember something particular about that specific occasion tho, but it usually does the thing.
- meguest 8y ago
  I too started taking photos on my phone. It's not a solution, it's a safety behaviour. The trouble with safety behaviours is that they can stop working after a while and then you're in trouble.
- TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
  I found it helped my compulsion to repeatedly check if I locked a door was to check, and then say, out loud, to myself, "OK, it's locked." Just throwing it out there for someone else.
InitialLastName 8y ago
> 5. Causing harm to other people, particularly when driving I actually think this is a healthy thing to be a little obsessively worried about. Drivers are generally too blasé about the damage they can cause to other humans through their actions. Like, most people should be worried about that enough that they drive less often because of it.
- meguest 8y ago
  It's not healthy. For some people their OCD is so bad that they cannot pass a cyclist or pedestrian, regardless of how safe or textbook the manoeuvre, without having deep anxiety that they might have hit them.
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    Is it healthy for a cyclist or pedestrian to have a deep anxiety that any given driver passing them is going to hit them? Because that bit happens pretty frequently. You and sibling are right that such a horrific illness shouldn't be trivialized, but I get really tired of people pretending that driving a car should be something you don't feel a little nervous doing.
- DanBC 8y ago
  Please don't trivialse a disabling condition by saying "sure, but everyone does that". All you've done here is shown that you have fialed to listen to and understand the parent poster. They're not describing the perfectly normal response of "I'm in two tons of metal hurtling down the road I better be careful". They're describing the pathological anxiety response. That gentle rumbling noise? That's a dead child trapped in the wheel arch, and I ran over them at that last junction. The air con is working a bit harder? That's because I ran over someone and that accident damaged the aircon. That car behind me, that everyone else says is perfectly normal? They're trying to get my attention to tell me about the cyclist I just killed.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
ericabiz 8y ago
Although I don’t have OCD, I have ADHD. Your condition causes you to have anxiety about it, and my condition makes me more likely to actually do one of those things :) How I’ve gotten around the anxiety (as I actually have left doors unlocked to my detriment on multiple occasions, have left the stove on etc.), is I say it out loud as I’m doing it. “Locking the front door.” Sometimes I might have to add a day: “Monday morning. Locking the front door.” as my brain will occasionally trick me into thinking that memory wasn’t from today. I did this enough that now it’s somehow ingrained in my head and I don’t forget to do things as often. I’m not sure if this would work for you, but it might help.
- arkey 8y ago
  Useful mechanism. And I really like the Monday morning "timestamp" thing. I remember this appeared around HN some time ago, you might find it interesting: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-japan-trains https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-j...

agumonkey 8y ago

I talk to my anxiety peaks. It's a bit like a meditative distanciation device.

stordoff 8y ago

The way I've always described OCD, and this is probably particularly relevant to a Hacker News audience, is that it's like two processes running. There's your normal thought process, and then there's the OCD through process. You completely recognise it as being irrational and ridiculous, yet it often wins and never goes away. It's exhausting.

teekert 8y ago
Hmm, this and the article sound very useful, thanx for sharing.
ashleyn 8y ago
I have OCD as well. Picture opening htop and seeing a process stuck in D state filling up all 8 cores.
- teekert 8y ago
  But at least you are the one picturing the htop, you are not the computer htop runs on. Does that help?
  - arkey 8y ago
    I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but for example an introspective person IS the computer that it pictures, so to say.
    - teekert 8y ago
      Yes, but, it helps to picture oneself in the third person. In this case one pictures oneself as a 100% busy CPU, and that may help. It's a well known trick to picture oneself agonizing over something and becoming aware that you "are not the agonizing" but it is something separate from you. It will make you feel more tranquil.
screye 8y ago
After seeing some of these comments, I sometimes feel I should get myself checked for a mental illness. But the symptoms seem so widespread across people, that it seems to be within range of normal human behavior. I have not been crippled by any of these things (though it is immensely distracting). It's almost like I am looking for an easy explanation for genuine personality defects (which includes being easily distracted and procrastination). Which then again, makes me feel miserable for using mental illness as an excuse for ignoring my imperfections. Yes, I do have to step on whole tiles (no cracks or breaks) when walking. But, I don't notice it when I am with people. I have felt an intense itch in my back when then door handle was left at a non-90 degree angle. But, it only happened a few times in 2015. I do need to tap my feet to high tempo jazz/prog music or talk out loud to focus on work,...but, even without them I have scored above 95 percentile on standardized tests. So, maybe what I am seeking is simply out of reach because I've reached my personal intelligence ceiling. I do have the kind of distracting thoughts (what ifs and hypotheticals) that the top comment was talking about...but they are never so distracting enough to make me act on them. ( I do avoid going too close to ledges though...I've only so much trust in myself) Problem is, I know people who call themselves OCD for less. But, I seeing people with genuine OCD makes my problems seem trivial. I think the bitter pill to swallow, is that I am simply an easily distracted procrastinator with little self-discipline. But, It would be so wonderful if I could sometimes send these thoughts away, for the few hours everyday that I really do want to work and make real progress.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

yantrams 8y ago

As a kid, I used to frequently do things in a pattern that I discovered much later to be the [0]Thue Morse sequence. 1001-0110-0110-1001 and so on. For example, "1" would be snapping fingers and "0" touching my nose. Never had it diagnosed clinically so I'm not really sure if I even have OCD but some symptoms tick the boxes. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thue%E2%80%93Morse_sequence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thue%E2%80%93Morse_sequence

duckerude 8y ago
I did the same thing, with that same sequence. Discovering it had a name was a bit surreal. I wonder how common it is. These are other accounts I've found: http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html https://trapezzoid.livejournal.com/82863.html https://trapezzoid.livejournal.com/82863.html
- yantrams 8y ago
  I know right! This sequence actually has a history of being discovered by people over and over again through out history. I am the linkdot chap btw :)
p0nce 8y ago
Hello I had the exact same affliction as a kid. I would always do things in ABBA sequence, up to your 1001-0110-0110-1001 pattern. I remember it made things "balanced" to finalize that sequence. It went off around when I was 7 I think? Wow: http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html http://linkdot.link/thue-morse-prouhet-sequence.html => explain it very well
- yantrams 8y ago
  Awesome :) It stuck around till I was 7-8 years old in my case too I think. I still do it every now and then. Counting syllables and interchanging vowel sounds is another thing I indulge in frequently. Vibrant looks really cool btw. Will check it out. I recently started dabbling with graphics and generative art.

wordpressdev 8y ago

Olivia, as in Olivia Dunham?

the_af 8y ago
From TFA: "The O in Olivia stands for OCD"
- wordpressdev 8y ago
  I know.
  - the_af 8y ago
    Oh. Now I feel silly I didn't understand your comment. Anyway, I like Olivia Dunham too and still miss Fringe.
    - wordpressdev 8y ago
      Have you checked her latest series, Mindhunter?

lolc 8y ago

When my mind is idle it will consider jumping off the bridge I'm walking over, or pushing strangers in front of the passing train at a station. I never thought I would do any of this, and the thoughts are easy to dismiss. To me, these thoughts were just part of the normal what-if and should-i scenarios my mind plays all the time. I was surprised to learn that some people don't have these thoughts and consider it worrying if I have them. I still think they must have a very boring mind if they never consider anything off the beaten path. But there was a time in my life where I had the recurring image of punching my conversation partner in the face. It was quite intrusive and while I wasn't ever close to carrying through I started wondering what caused it. I had to change some things in my life to reduce this back to a passing idea like before.

arkey 8y ago
It's very correlated to OCD but afaik it's not exclusive to it, it is its own thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought > To me, these thoughts were just part of the normal what-if and should-i scenarios my mind plays all the time. The problem is that sometimes they might become pretty disturbing, as you can see in the Wikipedia article. But then again, the bottom line seems to be: as long as you detect them as weird, unwanted, unnormal thoughts, don't worry too much, it's more common than you think, and no, you're not becoming a psycho.
random_kris 8y ago
hehe this happens to me all the time... Thoughts like let's go off the road with my motorbike, punching someone in face, moral dillemas like go to job but at the same time stay home and just get high.... brains are weird I just hope those thoughts stay thoughts and I'll be able to resist them in future
rocgf 8y ago
I've had these kind of intrusive thoughts since I can remember. I would never act on it and now, after having had them for so long, I am confident enough to play along sometimes if I don't have anything better to do. They are apparently very common and most people will have them, to a various degree. I just see them as weird thought experiments and don't read too much into them.

throwitrealfar 8y ago

To clarify, as someone who checks things many times, like the stove, fridge etc. this is _not_ ocd, but “obsessive tendencies”, according to multiple therapists. True ocd is one client they have who literally can’t leave their house because they spend 8 hours every single day cleaning it.

elwell 8y ago

Accepting uncertainty. Exposure therapy. Trusting God. Those things have helped me be master of, rather than mastered by, OCD.